GE vs AgiLight.....the winner is.....

Erik Sine · March 22, 2013

Just about a year ago today we discovered at ISA Expo Orlando that GE filed a lawsuit against AgiLight on patent infringment, http://www.thesignsyndicate.com/forums/index.php?/topic/5478-ge-vs-agilight/.

Today the results of the lawsuit came out.

AgiLight Inc. Granted Summary Judgment of Non-Infringement in GE’s Patents

San Antonio, TX (PRWEB) March 22, 2013

Leading LED (light emitting diode) signage lighting manufacturer, AgiLight®, Inc. announces today that a federal court has granted a summary judgment in its favor in patent litigation brought against it by GE Lighting Solutions, LLC involving four LED patents. The United States District Court Northern District of Ohio ruled on March 18, 2013 that AgiLight’s products do not infringe two of the patents in the suit. Because GE’s claims under the other two patents previously had been denied, this ruling means that all of GE’s allegations have been rejected.

“We are very pleased with the court’s ruling after more than a year of litigation. We maintained from the outset that our products do not infringe GE’s patents, and this ruling confirms that fact.” Said Steven Moya, President and CEO of AgiLight, “We greatly appreciate our customers who stood by us and continued to buy, specify and use AgiLight’s innovative LED products throughout this process.”

imanut · March 22, 2013

Congrats to Dan and Agilight for taking on the gorilla.

Erik Sine · July 3, 2014

Another update
http://www.natlawreview.com/article/claim-construction-when-figures-do-not-match-their-description

Claim Construction: When Figures Do Not Match Their Description

Addressing the issue of claim construction in light of an appeal of summary judgment, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed and remanded a district court’s summary judgments of noninfringement, finding a genuine dispute based on an apparent disagreement between a figure in the specification and its corresponding description. GE Lighting Solutions, LLC v. Agilight, Inc., Case No. 13-1267 (Fed. Cir., May 1, 2014) (Moore, J.) (Reyna, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).

GE sued Agilight, alleging infringement of four patents directed to LED string lights by Agilight’s LED string light product SignRayz. After claim construction, the parties stipulated to noninfringement of two patents, and the district court granted Agilight’s motion for summary judgment of noninfringement of the other two patents. GE appealed.

The Federal Circuit reversed and remanded the judgments of noninfringement for three patents and affirmed summary judgment of the other patent. In its analysis, the Federal Circuit considered the lower court’s construction of the term “substantially ellipsoidal inner profile.” The term described the shape of an inner surface of an LED reflective housing. Although the parties stipulated to this term, the stipulation did not address whether the claim requires the entire profile, or just a portion of that profile, to be ellipsoidal. The district court construed the term to require the inner profile to be “substantially” ellipsoidal. The only embodiment disclosed in the specification refers to the inner profile of Figure 7 as ellipsoidal. It was undisputed that the inner profile of the embodiment illustrated in Figure 7, the only disclosed embodiment, is only partially ellipsoidal and arguably not substantially ellipsoidal.

The Federal Circuit found that there was no intrinsic evidence supporting a construction of the term that would exclude the preferred and only disclosed embodiment. The Federal Circuit reversed the judgment regarding that patent because there was a genuine dispute as to whether Agilight’s accused devices included a substantially ellipsoidal inner profile. The Federal Circuit used similar reasoning in rejecting Agilight’s argument regarding the term “generally spherical outer profile” found in the same patent.

The Federal Circuit also reversed and remanded summary judgment of noninfringement based on the lower court’s construction of the term “IDC connector.” The Federal Circuit found that the district court improperly imported limitations from the specification where there was no clear lexicography or disavowal to justify not construing the term according to its plain and ordinary meaning.

In the dissenting opinion, Judge Reyna disagreed with the majority’s construction of “substantially ellipsoidal inner profile.” Judge Reyna stated that the term should refer to the full profile, instead of just a portion of the profile. The dissent argued that the majority took the term “profile” out of context. The plain meaning of “profile” along with the statements made during prosecution indicated that the claim required the full profile to be ellipsoidal. Judge Reyna argued that there was disconnect between the patent figures and the corresponding description, but argued that this problem was resolved by the amendments and remarks made during prosecution.